board8fandomcom-20200216-history
Knuckles the Echidna's Contest History
Who is Knuckles? Talk about Shadow the Hedgehog all you want, but the best badass in the Sonic series is Knuckles. He may not have been in the first two Sonic titles, but he stormed onto the scene in the third installment, Sonic and Knuckles. Knuckles was a step ahead of Sonic all throughout the game, and Sonic was in a constant state of playing catchup. Sonic would eventually previal, but Knuckles was one of the best badasses in gaming because of Sonic and Knuckles. Until that game, there was simply no outwitting Sonic. Ever. But Knuckles managed to pull it off, and thanks to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic fans could play through multiple Sonic games using their new favorite badass. Granted, Knuckles hasn't made the best of transitions into the 3D Sonic titles, but then again, neither have most of the Sonic characters. And even though Knuckles may have some horrid voice acting and characterization in the 3D Sonic games, he still isn't as bad as Shadow is. "I can't betray my friends." -Knuckles Knuckles the Echidna's Contest History Win-Loss Record: 8-9 Summer 2002 Contest - East Division - 7 Seed * Eastern Round 1 --- Defeated (10) Akira Yuki, 49964 80.56% - 12057 19.44% * Eastern Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Solid Snake, 26748 39.29% - 41335 60.71% * Extrapolated Strength --- 15th Place 27.68% Summer 2003 Contest - West Division - 8 Seed * Western Round 1 --- Defeated (9) Yuna, 56363 55.32% - 45531 44.68% * Western Quarterfinal --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 35646 36.87% - 61038 63.13% * Extrapolated Strength --- 24th Place 25.62% Summer 2004 Contest - 20XX Division - 10 Seed * 20XX Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Kefka, 47578 57.46% - 35220 42.54% * 20XX Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Solid Snake, 32946 40.46% - 48481 59.54% * Extrapolated Strength --- 28th Place 24.94% Knuckles is quite an interesting case in these contests. In every single contest, Knuckles has won his first round match before losing to Solid Snake in the second round. There is no way to verify Knuckles' strength, simply because he gets stuck fighting Solid Snake every year. Wherever Snake goes, Knuckles goes with him. The argument could be made that Knuckles has grown slightly weaker with each passing contest, but there is no way to know whether or not this is Knuckles weakening independently of Solid Snake. There is simply no way to verify his strength until he loses to someone else, but thanks to CJayC's cute little ideas, we may very well see Knuckles stuck fighting Snake every single year. An interesting fact about Knuckles: of all the characters who have won a match in all three contests, he is the weakest. Summer 2005 Contest - Devil Division - 6 Seed * Devil Round 1 --- Defeated (3) Magus, 51909 50.86% - 50153 49.14% * Devil Semifinal --- Lost to (2) Squall, 45780 46.20% - 53310 53.80% * Extrapolated Strength --- 18th Place 29.77% KNLITFR - Knuckles Never Loses In The First Round Ignore the fact that he would lose to Squall in the second round of this contest, because no one really talks about that anyway. What people care about is the fact that Knuckles was expected to be MagusFodder, yet not only proved how overrated Magus was, but outright beat Magus in the biggest upset we've seen in one of these things since Link/Cloud 2003. And not only was Magus vastly overrated, but Knuckles being stuck behind Solid Snake for three years running caused his true strength to be hidden the entire time as well. No one expected Knuckles to win that match, outside of a few joke posts here and there. No BOP entry, no Oracle pick and no Guru had Knuckles winning, which made the upset all the more awesome. It's impossible to know what Knuckles has in store for us in the future, but his mark on these contests is set in stone for life due to one first round match. Summer 2007 Contest - Division 1 - First Group * Division 1 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 43939 27.84% - Yoshi, 55989 35.48% - Rikku, 42830 27.14% - Vaan, 15064 9.54% * Division 1 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 25442 20.27% - Mega Man, 47353 37.73% - Yoshi, 35438 28.24% - KOS-MOS, 17261 13.75% After getting unfairly shafted last year due to the female bracket, people were anxious to see how Knuckles would follow up his memorable 2005 performance. When the bracket was released, it looked good for him to get past the second round for the first time. Well, Knux was almost involved in an upset, but he would have been on the wrong side of it. When the match began, he found himself trailing...Rikku? Are you kiddin' me? Knuckles did end up taking second place, but only by an unimpressive 1100 votes. Oh yeah, and he finished far behind Yoshi in both matches. Sonic Team bombing would become a recurring theme in the contest. Summer 2008 Contest - Division 2 - Third Group * Division 2 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 27794 20.9% - Mario, 53836 40.47% - Zelda, 32691 24.58% - Fei Fong Wong, 18695 14.05% Bad luck for Knux in the 2008 contest, who still hasn't had a redeeming moment since his upset over Magus in 2005. Hoping to redeem his 2007 performance, Knuckles got placed in a fourpack he had no chance of getting through (with the exception of Fei). Here's hoping next year Knux gets a better spot, because he is capable of dealing damage where it's due. Winter 2010 Contest - Chaos Division - 9 Seed * Chaos Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Cecil Harvey, 37437 52.00% - 34558 48.00% * Chaos Round 2 --- Lost to (1) Sonic, 17085 32.39% - 35669 67.61% * Extrapolated Strength --- 88th Place 19.29% Another year, another first-round victory over a Square character, another second-round slaughtering at the hands of a member of the Noble Nine. This time, he was placed in the same fourpack as Sonic, assuring his continued failure to make it to the third round of a contest. It still remains to be seen what Knuckles could do with a favorable bracket placement. Interestingly, Knuckles' struggles with Cecil only intensified the roar of negativity toward Sonic's chances of keeping the Noble Nine intact. Summer 2013 Contest - Division 7 - 9 Seed * Division 7 Round 1 --- 1st place, 11590 46.21% - (19) Celes Chere, 7672 30.59% - (10) Seifer Almasy, 5820 23.20% * Division 7 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 5528 21.33% - (1) Samus Aran, 16029 61.85% - (22) Catherine, 4359 16.82% People have been giving Knuckles the benefit of the doubt for so many years because he always goes up against Nintendo or Sonic characters. Despite still not having a good read on him it is likely he is not as strong as his performance against Squall in 2005 indicated. His performance against Celes and Seifer were unimpressive and while most would point out to SFF against Samus his first round performance and Cecil's performance in this contest tell us a story that Knuckles is not as strong as he used to be. Fall 2018 Contest - Division 2 - 9 Seed * Division 2 Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Zidane Tribal, 16597 56.8% - 12622 43.2% * Division 2 Round 2 --- Lost to (1) Zero, 13128 43.85% - 16811 56.15% Every new contest, Knuckles just keeps on adding new Square characters on his kill list. Five Final Fantasies (IV, VIII and XII, plus VI and X twice), Chrono Trigger, and even Xenogears in the one time he got down in round 1. Now it was time for FFIX protagonist Zidane, who unlike his companion Vivi continues to unimpress. Then he faced his arguable Mega Man equivalent, Zero, and fell down without much of a fight. Maybe one day the echidna will get a winnable round 2! Category:Contest Histories